Luke Jensen will share how transcendental meditation TM helped him at Healing the Hidden Wounds of War forum in Fairfield Saturday. The event is an open forum for Iowa veterans and their families affected by PTSD or PTS.

After spending a year in Afghanistan investigating cases as a military police officer in 2009, Luke Jensen was immediately given a series of medications for anxiety and sleep to treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms (PTSD).

Coming home and the medications he was prescribed before his discharge didn’t fix his problem. Through the day his anxiety was so high that his fingertips pruned from sweating and at night he dreamed of the military.

He returned to his civilian life, but he found his PTSD symptoms so debilitating that after a night of drinking he swallowed all the…

The Canadian Women’s Wellness Initiative—the women’s wing of the Transcendental Meditation organization in Canada—has partnered with the Central Saanich Police Service [CSPS] near Victoria, British Columbia to offer Transcendental Meditation to their officers and staff. Given how stressful law enforcement can be, this comes as welcome news, for police officers and the general public.

The study, conducted by Kwantlen Polytechnic University psychologist Lisa Kitt for the Vancouver Police Union, surveyed officers in the Vancouver Police Department. Of the 1,100 officers who were emailed questionnaires, 765 replied, a participation rate of more than 70 per cent, which is considered extraordinarily high for a social sciences…

“My TM (Transcendental Meditation) experience started right after the last [2008] election. It re-centered everything for me,” she said.

“Campaigns are just so hard on everything. You’re on the bus, you’re off the bus, you’re on the plane, you’re in a hotel. And that’s really your life: You think you’re not going to eat and then you eat too much, or you think you are going to eat and you don’t eat enough. You’re just so stressed out and tired. …

“… I just sit in a chair in my room. I meditate in the airport. I meditate in my office in the afternoon. It doesn’t require a special place or even a lack of people. … I think that it has made my thought process more ordered. When your stress level is lower, you make better decisions and you have a better thought process. Do I still get angry? I do. Do I still get frustrated? I do. Do I still have stress? Yes. I don’t think that’s the point; the point is for you to be able to handle the stress. The point is that I don’t hang onto my anger nearly as long as I used to. It just takes the harsh edges of life and softens them up in a way that you can cope with them.

As CNN chief political correspondent for many years, Crowley’s work schedule was all-consuming. But she always found time to practice TM. It was the first thing she did at home each morning before heading to the office. And the last thing she did each day before leaving work.

“If you make time for meditation, the rest of your life is just, well, better,” Crowley says. “My thinking is sharper, more ordered, and my decisions come more easily. So I’m more effective during the rest of my day. And I’m better at managing my time.

Finding the time is not always easy, but the return on her investment in practicing TM is well worth the effort, Crowley says.

Crowley hopes that everyone—especially women balancing work life and family—can enjoy the benefits she’s found.

“My advice is this: Just try to find the time to meditate. When you are working or have kids, it’s easy to say, ‘I don’t have time for me,’ “ Crowley says. “We women need to give ourselves permission to take care of ourselves.”

Renowned Researcher Shares His Journey Toward Uncovering the Science of Higher States of Consciousness

by David Orme-Johnson, Ph.D.

One day, as a child, I came across the word Nirvana, which was described as a state of heavenly bliss. I ran to my mother and asked her if such a thing was real. “I don’t know,” she said, “Some people believe in it, I guess.” “If it’s real,” I asked, “Why isn’t everybody trying to get it?” “What do you think, Bill?” she asked my father, a structural engineer and businessman. “Um, maybe,” he said, smiling benignly and not looking up from his newspaper. My mother, a reference librarian, said what she often did: “Look it up!”

So I did. But Webster’s definition of Nirvana was confusing to my young mind and limited experience. It said things like “the final beatitude that transcends suffering” and “a state of oblivion to care, pain.” It was synonymous with “BLISS, HEAVEN” but was a “DREAM.” Yet I also found this: “A goal hoped for but apparently unattainable.” If it was only apparently unattainable, maybe there was hope after all!

Large groups practicing the advanced Transcendental Meditation program were associated with significant reductions in rates of drug-related death and infant mortality during the period 2007–2010

A new study in SAGE Open reports a novel solution to US fatality rates from the misuse of prescribed and illegal drugs. In a prospective social experiment from 2007 to 2010, practice of the Transcendental Meditation® and TM-Sidhi® program by a large group at Maharishi University of Management in Iowa was associated with a 30.4% reduction in the rate of growth of US drug-related fatalities, preventing an estimated 26,425 deaths.

A rapidly rising trend in the drug-related fatality rate during the baseline period leveled out significantly when the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi group exceeded 1,725 participants beginning in January 2007 (vertical line).

Four-year study finds group meditation reduces drug-related deaths in general population

The rate of US drug-related fatalities fell 30.4% nationwide from 2007 to 2010…

Large groups practicing the advanced Transcendental Meditation program were associated with significant reductions in murder rates in US urban areas during the period 2007–2010

A follow-up study in the Journal of Health and Environmental Research examines a novel proposed approach to help reduce murder rates in large US urban areas. In a prospective social experiment from 2007 to 2010, practice of the Transcendental Meditation® and TM-Sidhi® program by a large group at Maharishi University of Management in Iowa was associated with a 28.4% reduction in murder rates in 206 US urban areas, preventing an estimated 4,136 deaths.

A slightly rising trend in the urban murder rate during the baseline was reversed significantly when the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi group exceeded 1,725 participants in January 2007 (vertical dashed line).

Follow-up study suggests group meditation reduced murder rates in large US cities